Meeting Susan - Part 1 of 4

It was raining. One of those days that gives you the urge to stay in the house and do nothing. I succumbed without any reluctance. I sat at my computer composing an email to send to my new fiancé when I suddenly had this impulse to chat online. I really don’t understand what caused the impulse. Perhaps I needed some form of social contact and with the weather as it was chatting felt most desirable. I would never know what exactly I would be getting into.
I decided to go on to yahoo and chat under my brilliant screen name, theguy1978. I must say I deserve some kind of award for that one. I am a guy and I was born in 1978. I logged into my usual chat room, Politics 3. I stayed on for a while, but the idiots in the room were typing in extremely large font about everything from Social Security to gay marriage. The only people posting were conservative assholes that didn’t know a god damn thing about Social Security, and their gay marriage posts all shared the same word, “God.”
I went to the room selection page clicked on “Romance.” Until this day I don’t know why. All I know is that somehow my hand moved the mouse over “Romance” and I clicked it. I decided to go with it and I clicked on the “20’s Love 8” page.
Exactly when the room was loaded, the first post said, “Any bored 28 m want to chat?”. It must have been fate. Honestly, what are the chances? Okay, so they are pretty good, but I was isolated in my den. Sitting lonely at my computer and under shock for what I had just seen. I double-clicked her name, lonelygurl78.

theguy1978: Hey
lonelygurl78: Hi, asl
theguy1978: 28 m PA, u?
lonelygurl78: 28 f OH, where in PA
theguy1978: Philly, where in OH
lonelygurl78: Akron
theguy1978: cool
lonelygurl78: so, how r u
theguy1978: gud, u
lonelygurl78: well as the name says, lonely
theguy1978: and why is that
lonelygurl78: my b/f just left me a week ago, we were pretty serious, I thought
theguy1978: oh, im sorry
lonelygurl78: no its ok, how could you have known
theguy1978: yeah, well if it helps I know how you feel.

I wasn’t lying. About a year ago the first girl I ever loved left me after 3 years of steady dating. I was devastated. For about a week, I felt like one of those squirrels that you see plastered on the roadway after they have lost a head to head battle with an Oldsmobile.

lonelygurl78: oh, that’s good someone I can relate with
theguy1978: yeah
lonelygurl78: so you got a g/f

Now how exactly do I approach this? I mean I could have said that I was recently engaged and that my life is going perfect. This would have devastated the poor girl. She was at a very fragile state in her life.

theguy1978: no

I guess technically I wasn’t lying. What I had was not called a girlfriend. She was my fiancée.

lonelygurl78: ok

Now our conversation went on for sometime, discussing all of the basics. She liked reading, watching movies, hiking, and working. Apparently, she was a teacher, Miss Susan Rotcher. A fifth grade teacher and loved it. I told her that I, Robert Timmons, was a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. We talked about some of my columns and features. Then she said that she has seen my mug shot that is placed next to my monthly column and she thought I was very handsome.

theguy1978: really
lonelygurl78: yeah
theguy1978: yeah, well I am sure you aren’t too bad yourself, got a pic

What was I doing? Asking for someone’s picture in a chat room is like asking someone out on a date in real life – well without the whole face to face embarrassment thing. But, it’s a huge step in the cyber world because you are breaking that visual barrier.

lonelygurl78: well you can see it on the Akron schools website

Wow, she looked great. For the 30 seconds that I stared at that traditional school photo, I forgot all about my fiancé. She had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen, those dark brown ones that you find yourself getting lost in. Her shiny, brown curls of hair were cut right at the shoulders. She had a perfect nose, mouth and chin. Everything about this woman was perfect.

lonelygurl78: u there
theguy1978: yeah, sorry I had some trouble finding it
lonelygurl78: so what do you think?
theguy1978: u r beautiful, what else can I say

What the fuck was I saying? I just told another woman that she was beautiful. In two months I am getting married to Donna, and I am already am having an affair. No, I thought, I am just telling a gorgeous woman that she is in fact, gorgeous. If anything, I am just raising her spirits.

lonelygurl78: well thanks, it means a lot
theguy1978: no prob
lonelygurl78: well, I gotta go, we should talk later
theguy1978: yeah that would be great
lonelygurl78: I’ll be on later, around ten…right here in this room
theguy1978: ok
lonelygurl78: so it’s a date?

Uh, date? Sweat was forming on my forehead. For some reason, I was nervous. Nervous about how I should answer that, and internally nervous on how I was going to deal with this whole thing.

theguy1978: ok, talk to you then

First off I should inform you that I have been known in the past as someone who worries about the most nominal things. The whole conversation with her filled me with guilt. But, I was extremely pleased with my answer. “Ok, talk to you then.” It could be taken so many ways. She could take it like, Ok! I would simply think of it like, Ok? The little voice inside my head said that by leaving it like I didn’t shut her down, but I didn’t recognize it as a “date.”
The next 9 hours and 17 minutes went incredibly slow. I tried to keep my mind off her. I tried researching for my column, cleaning the house, watching TV, and I even tried calling Donna. However, the only thing on my mind was Susan.
When Donna came over at 4:00 pm I was very quiet. When she asked why, I brilliantly attributed it to the weather and the cold that I was just getting over. I actually got over the cold over week before but I figured colds can linger.
I swear I looked at the clock every five minutes. Finally, when 8:30 came, Donna left. We each had our own place. You see Donna’s father is extremely religious. She would have been excommunicated from the family if she even stayed the night at my place.
Somehow when Donna left though, she took with her all the guilt that I was feeling. The whole time she was over I felt like she caught me having sex with the neighbor lady or something. I was drowned in a pool of guilt. Now, it was all gone.
When I look back, I laugh at how I spent the next hour and a half. I actually got ready for the “date.” I shaved, took a shower, brushed my teeth, and I can distinctly remember that I popped a mint in before I got online.
It was 9:56 pm when I logged onto “20’s Love 8.” She was there. My mind decided that since she was early she probably experienced exactly what I experienced that day. I could picture her blanking out in front of her class while she was reading some encyclopedia entry on penguins or something. I wished that was what happened.

To be continued…